Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing1

Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 1 Mikhail Kizilov

Due to their active involvement in trading activity and their frequent changes of place of residence, European Jewish travellers left a number of highly important travel accounts from the Middle Ages onwards, e.g. the famous twelfth- century Jewish travellers Petahyah of Ratisbon, Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon, who, in the latter end of the twelfth century, visited Poland, Russia, Little Tartary, the Crimea, Armenia, Assyria, Syria, the Holy Land, and Greece, trans. Dr A. Benisch (London: Longman, 1861) [Hebrew original with English translation]; The itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. Elkan Adler (London, 1907). Unfortunately, east European Jews started composing travelogues compara- tively late, perhaps only from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries. Travel accounts of European Jews of the early modern period usually represented itineraries of pilgrimages to the land of Israel (erets Yisra’el). (For a bibliography of accounts of Christian travellers to the Holy Land, see Nathan Schur, Jerusalem in pilgrims and travellers’ accounts: a thematic bibliography of Western Christian itineraries 1300–1917 (Jerusalem: Ariel, 1980).) Nevertheless, travellers often left important data on the east European countries which they had to cross on their way to Palestine. Unfortunately for our topic, most early modern Jewish travellers were from central and western Europe. From the nineteen Jewish travel accounts selected by Elkan Adler, only one (!) traveller was of east Eu- ropean origin (Jewish travellers, ed. Elkan Adler (London: George Routledge, 1930); repr. as Jewish travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 ﬁ rsthand accounts, ed. Elkan Adler (New York: Dover, 1987)). The quantity of travels to Palestine grew signiﬁ cantly in the eighteenth century due to the rise of the Hasidic movement in Polish lands. However, only a few Hasidic travellers and immigrants to erets Yisra’el described their travel experiences in writing. Most of the Jewish travelogues were composed in Hebrew, called in the Jewish tradition leshon ha-qodesh (Heb. ‘sacred language’). However, the language employed by Jewish travellers in modern times differed considerably

1 A word of thanks goes to Dr Dan Shapira (Jerusalem), Barry Walfi sh (Toronto), and Brad Sabin Hill (New York) for their help in the work on this article. The author is grateful to Szonja Rahel Komoroczy (Budapest) for her help in the work on the travel literature related to Hungarian Jewry. 230 East European Travel Writing in Europe: A Bibliography from traditional Biblical Hebrew while including a number of loan words and expressions from vernacular languages. Moreover, from this period, the travels of Jewish voyagers were directed not only to the Holy Land, but also to the Muslim Orient, America, Africa, Russia, and Europe, and even to travellers’ own countries. Travels to Europe nevertheless remained rather on the margin of Jewish travel writings, being outnumbered by travel descriptions of Palestine and the Muslim Orient. Many famous Jewish men of letters and public fi gures composed colourful descriptions of their travels in Europe and in the East (e.g. Nahman of Bratslav, Ahad ha-Am, Jacob Bachrach, Abraham Gottlober et al.). It was only from the nineteenth century, the time of Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah), that Jewish travellers started actively using Yiddish for their accounts (nevertheless, a few important accounts had already been composed in Yiddish in the seventeenth century). Yiddish, however, remained more a language of literary travelogues rather than of trips actually taken. The importance of Yiddish as a literary language grew considerably in the twenti- eth century, and a number of travel accounts were composed in this language before the beginning of the Second World War. Reports written in Yiddish by travellers to Birobidzhan (Siberia), the capital of the Soviet Jewish Autonomy, which had been seen by many as an embodiment of Jewish longing for inde- pendence and equality, became especially signifi cant in the interwar period. (In addition to Russian, Yiddish was another widely spoken language of the area. Unfortunately, the Birobidhzan project lost its signifi cance after the war and Stalin’s anti-Jewish campaign; equally futile were attempts to organize a Jewish autonomy in the Crimea in the 1930s and after the war—the so-called Agro-Joint project.) After the annihilation of European Jewry in the fl ames of the Holocaust, travel writing in Hebrew and Yiddish in eastern Europe became almost extinct. Nevertheless, those East European Holocaust survivors who became citizens of Israel and America, often describe in writing their nostalgic post-war visits to the once-fl ourishing Jewish Europe of their forefathers. In terms of content, travel writings in Hebrew are usually full of eloquent Biblical quotations and lofty allusions combined with descriptions of everyday life, people, events, architectural monuments, towns, food, and customs. Trav- elogues in Yiddish seem to be more materialistic, written in a manner closely resembling travel accounts in other European languages. A very specifi c feature of Jewish travel accounts is their concentration mainly on internal Jewish life. Nevertheless, Jewish travellers also left much important data on the history of their Gentile surroundings. As an interesting phenomenon, one should distin- guish the travel accounts of east European Karaite (i.e. non-Talmudic) Jews, who from the seventeenth century onwards employed for literary purposes not only Hebrew, but also their Umgangssprachen, Turkic Karaimo-Qipchak and Crimean Tatar languages. (The Karaite Jews (Karaites) in Poland–Lithuania and the Crimea did not know Yiddish at all and used Hebrew and Turkic languages for literary purposes.) Because of the ever-migrating lifestyle of most Jewish authors on the one hand, and the frequently-changing east European borders on the other, it is Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 231 sometimes quite diffi cult to defi ne precisely the geographic affi liation of each particular traveller (e.g. Ephraim Deinard (1846–1930), who was born in Rus- sian Latvia, lived in the Crimea, Russia, Southern Ukraine, Poland, and Pales- tine, travelled throughout the world, published his Hebrew books in many of the aforementioned countries, and died in America). Therefore, their linguistic identifi cation as ‘east European Jewish travellers who wrote in Hebrew and Yiddish’ would perhaps be more relevant than any attempt to categorise travellers’ citizenship and nationality. Any research into travel writing in Hebrew should start from a few collections of Jewish travelogues in English translations and Hebrew originals (note, however, that only some of the accounts published there were penned by the Jews from eastern Europe and about Europe): Otsar masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers, sel. and ed. J.D. Eisenstein (New York: [n.p.], 1926; repr. Tel-Aviv: [n.p.], 1969; Hebrew); Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, ed. Avraham Ya’ari (Tel-Aviv: Ahdut, 1946; Hebrew; repr. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1996); Jew- ish travellers, ed. Elkan Adler (London: George Routledge, 1930), and repr. as Jewish travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 fi rsthand accounts (New York: Dover, 1987; English). Three accounts by Karaite travellers were published by Jonas Hayyim Gurland in the fi rst volume of his Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg (Lyck: Rudolph Siebert, 1865; Hebrew). Sheluhei Erets Yisra’el by Abraham Ya’ari (Jerusalem: Yehuda, 1951) contains an extensive analysis of writings of Jewish travellers to Palestine from the earliest days until the end of the eighteenth century; unfortunately, the author concentrated mostly on the ‘Palestin- ian’ sections of the travel accounts. An extensive bibliography on Jewish travel writings, with excerpts from many original documents, may be found in Jacob Mann’s indispensable Texts and studies in Jewish history and literature, 2 vols (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1935; Hebrew with Eng- lish intr. and extensive commentaries). Philip Miller’s study Karaite separatism in nineteenth-century Russia: Joseph Solomon Lutski’s epistle of Israel’s deliverance (Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1993) analyzes a few nineteenth-century travelogues written by east European Karaite Jews. Literary travelogues in Yid- dish were analyzed by Leah Garrett in Journeys beyond the Pale: Yiddish travel writing in the modern world (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 2003). However, to the best of our knowledge, there has so far been no comprehen- sive study of the travel accounts of east European Jewish travellers.

BIBLIOGRAPHIC TOOLS

The best reference tool for any research in the fi eld of Jewish Studies (including Jewish travel writing) is the Encyclopedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971; 10 vols with later supplements; English). Also very helpful are Ha-Entsiqlope- diyah ha-ivrit (Jerusalem: [n.p.], 1949–1981; 32 vols; Hebrew), the German Encyclopedia Judaica (Berlin: [n.p.], 1928–1934; 10 vols until the letter ‘M’; the series was stopped because of Hitler’s ascension to power), and the Russian Evreyskaya entsiklopediya (Russian; St Petersburg: Obshchestvo dlia nauchnykh evreiskikh izdanii izdatelstva Brokhaus-Efron, 1906–1913). Polski słownik bio- 232 East European Travel Writing in Europe: A Bibliography grafi czny (Kraków, Warsaw, and Wrocław: Polska Akademija Umiejętno√ci; Polish; started in 1935; pub. before the Second World War by Gebetner and Wolff; completed until the letter ‘S’) would be useful for its bibliography of Jewish travellers born in Poland. Bolshaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (Russian; 35 vols; 2nd ed., Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe nauchnoe izdatel’stvo ‘BSE’, 1949–1965) might be useful for travellers who lived in the Russian/Soviet ter- ritory. Important references concerning books by Jewish travellers published before the mid-nineteenth century might be found in Moritz Steinschneider’s classic Catalogus Librorum Hebraeorum in Bibliotheca Bodleiana (Berlin: [n.p.], 1852–1860); and, for books published before 1929, in A.E. Cowley’s A concise catalogue of the Hebrew printed books in the Bodleian Library (Oxford: Clarendon, 1929). An exhaustive bibliography of travelogues by Karaite Jewish travellers might be found in the forthcoming book, The Karaites and Karaism: an anno- tated bibliography, ed. Barry Walfi sh with the assistance of Mikhail Kizilov (Je- rusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2006). Biographical data on Karaite travellers may also be found in The Karaite encyclopedia by Natan Schur (Vienna: P. Lang, 1995). The most useful online catalogues may be found on the website of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (including the catalogues of the University Library on Mount Scopus at http://www.mslib.huji.ac.il and the Jewish National Library on Givat Ram at http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il), which may be browsed with the ALEPH and RAMBI search systems and catalogues (however, one may encounter a number of technical diffi culties while downloading entries in Hebrew characters). Also highly useful would be the online catalogue of the YIVO In- stitute for Jewish History http://www.yivoinstitute.org/ (here the titles in Hebrew characters are given in English transliteration) and the online edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia at http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/index.jsp.

SECONDARY LITERATURE

ARNSBERG, PAUL. • Von Podolien nach Offenbach. Die jüdische Heilsarmee des Jakob Frank. Zur Ge- schichte der frankistischen Bewegung. Offenbach: [n.p.], 1965. [on the travels of Jacob Frank, a founder of Frankist movement]

BERGER, SHLOMO. • Travels among Jews and Gentiles: Abraham Levie’s travelogue: Amsterdam 1764. Ed. with intr. and commentary by Shlomo Berger. Leiden: Brill/Styx, 2002. [analysis of the travel account by Abraham Levie of Amsterdam; intr. (pp. 1–56) contains information on Early Modern Jewish travelogues in Yiddish]

BERKOWITZ, SIMCHA. • Ephraim Deinard (1846–1930): a transitional ﬁ gure. M.A. dissertation. Colum- bia University, 1964. [biography of the Jewish collector and traveller Ephraim Deinard with extensive bibliography of his publications] • ‘Ephraim Deinard: bibliophile and bookman’. Studies in bibliography and book- lore 94 (2002): 137–152. Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 233

CARMOLY, ELIAKIM. • Itinéraires de la Terre Sainte de XIII., XIV., XV., XVI. et XVII siècles et tradu- its de l’Hébreu. Brussels: [n.p.], 1857. [collection of French translations of c13–c17 Hebrew travel accounts to the Holy Land, also incl. East European travellers]

COWLEY, ARTHUR. • A concise catalogue of the Hebrew printed books in the Bodleian Library. Oxford: Clarendon, 1929. [catalogue of Hebrew printed books published pre-1929; contains references to many Hebrew travelogues]

GARRETT, LEAH. • ’Trains and train travel in Modern Yiddish literature’. Jewish social studies 7:2 (2001): 67–88. • Journeys beyond the Pale: Yiddish travel writing in the modern world. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 2003. [c19 and c20 literary travelogues in Yid- dish from Mendele Sforim to Shalom Aleichem]

GURLAND, JONAS. • Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg [Jewish documents from St.Petersburg]. Vol. 1. Lyck: Rudolph Siebert, 1865. [Hebrew originals of Karaite travel accounts kept in St Petersburg archival collections, with commentaries and intr. by editor]

HILL, BRAD SABIN. • ‘Ephraim Deinard on the Shapira affair’. In The book collector: special number for the 150th anniversary of Bernard Quaritch (1997), 167–179. [discusses historical value of writings of the famous Jewish collectors and travellers Ephraim Deinard and Moses Shapira]

KIZILOV, MIKHAIL. • Karaites through the Travelers’ Eyes: ethnic history, traditional culture and everyday life of the Crimean Karaites according to descriptions of the travelers. New York: al-Qirqisani, 2003. [analysis of accounts of European (incl. Jewish) travellers to and from the Crimea]

KRAUSS, SAMUEL. • ‘Die Palästinasiedlung der polnishen Hasidim und die Wiener Kreise im Jahre 1700.’ In Abhandlungen zur Erinnerung an Hirsch Perez Chajes, Vienna: [n.p.], 1933, 51–94. [travels of Polish Hassidic Jews to Jerusalem] • Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el [Travels to the Land of Israel]. Ed. Avraham Ya’ari. Tel-Aviv: [n.p.], 1946 [Hebrew; selection of travel writings by Jewish pilgrims to the Holy Land with commentaries and biographic notes by editor] • Masa‘ le-Polin [Journey to Poland: in search of a vanished Jewish world]. Ed. Ruth Porter and Nili Kadari. Historical consultant Shlomo Netzer. Tel Aviv: Nahum Goldmann Museum, 1990. [travel survey of the remains of Jewish historical monuments and Jewish life in Poland]

MILLER, PHILIP. • Karaite separatism in nineteenth-century Russia: Joseph Solomon Lutski’s epistle of 234 East European Travel Writing in Europe: A Bibliography

Israel’s deliverance. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1993. [Hebrew orig. and Eng. trans. of a diary by a Karaite traveller Joseph Solomon Lutski to Russia in 1827 (pp. 70–204); Eng. trans. of travel diary of Isaac ben Solomon (Russia, 1795) (pp. 215–219); Crimean Tatar original in Hebrew characters, Turkic transliteration, and English translation of MS diary of the journey to Russia in 1827 (pp. 225–244); extensive English commentaries, trans. and intr. by Philip Miller] • Otsar Masa’ot. Kovets tiyurim shel nos‘im Yehudim be-Erets Yisra’el, Surya, Mitsrayim ve-artsot aherot. [Treasure-house of travels: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers to the Land of Israel, Syria, Egypt and other countries]. Sel. and ed. Judah David Eisenstein (1855–1956). New York: [n.p.], 1926; repr. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1969. [Hebrew; c12-c19 travel writings of Jewish pilgrims to the Holy Land, commentaries and biographic notes by editor]

PELLI, MOSHE. • ‘The literary genre of the travelogue in Hebrew Haskalah literature’. Modern Judaism 11:2 (1991): 241–260. [on travel writing in Haskalah period]

SHAPIRA, DAN. • Avraham Firkowicz in Istanbul (1830–1832): paving the way for Turkic na- tionalism. Ankara: KaraM, 2003. [biography of famous Karaite collector and traveller Avraham Firkowicz, his life and travels in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, the Caucasus, Palestine, and Turkey]

SPITZER, SHLOMO J. and GÉZA KOMORÓCZY. • Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetéhez a kez- detektõl 1686-ig [Hebrew sources relating to the history of Hungary and Hun- garian Jewry in the Middle Ages (from the beginnings until 1686)] (Hungaria Judaica). Budapest: MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport, 2003. [original texts in Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino relating to Hungary pre-1696; incl. a few travel accounts]

STEINSCHNEIDER, MORITZ (1816–1907). • Catalogus librorum hebraeorum in bibliotheca Bodleiana jussu curatorum digessit et notis instruxit M. Steinschneider. Berlin: [n.p.], 1852–1860; Berlin: Welt-Ver- lag, 1931. [catalogue of Hebrew printed books published before mid-nineteenth century; incl. references to many Hebrew travelogues]

TREVISAN SEMI, EMANUELA. • ‘Agli inizi della letteratura Ebraica contemporanea: Me-Hayye ha-Qera’im di R. Fahn, tra folclore e letteratura’. Annali di Ca’Foscari 26:3 (1987): 5–25 [discusses the travel account of the important Jewish historian and man of letters, Reuven Fahn] • ‘Le Sefer Massa Qrim de Deinard: but parodique ou polemique?’. Revue des étudies juives 157:1–2 (1998): 57–67. [discusses historical value of writings of the famous Jewish collector and traveller, Ephraim Deinard]

WILHELM, KURT. • Wege nach Zion: Reiseberichte und Briefe aus Erez Jissrael in drei Jahrhunderten. Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1935 [travel account of European Jews to Israel] Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 235

WOLF, JOHANN CHRISTOPH. • Bibliotheca Hebraea. Hamburg: [n.p.], 1715–1733. [incl. Hebrew originals and translations of some travel accounts]

YA’ARI, ABRAHAM. • Shelukhei Erets Yisra’el [Messengers to the land of Israel]. Jerusalem: Yehuda, 1951. [extensive analysis of writings by Jewish travellers to Palestine from the earliest days up until end c18; incl. data on east European Jewish travellers]

ZUNZ, LEOPOLD. • ‘Geographische Literatur der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Jahre 1841’. In his Gesammelte Schriften. Vol. 1. Berlin: L. Gerschel, 1875, pp. 146–216. [survey of Jewish travel and geographic literature until 1841; incl. references to east European travel accounts]

TO 1850

BENJAMIN BEN ELIJAH. HY 1 • ‘Masa’ot’ [Travels], in: Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg [Jewish documents from St Petersburg]. Vol. 1. Ed. Jonas Gurland. Lyck: Ru- dolph Siebert, 1865, pp. 44–54. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Crimea/Eupatoria, Chufut-Kale, Balaklava; Cyprus; Turkey/Istanbul; Israel/Jerusalem, Hebron; Crimean and Lithuanian Karaite pilgrimage to Palestine, 1785–1786] • ‘Masa’ot ha-qara’im le-erets Yisra’el: Binyamin ben Eliyahu’ [Trav- els of the Karaites to the land of Israel: Benjamin ben Elijah], in Otsar Masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers. Sel. and ed. J.D. Eisenstein. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1969, pp. 212–218. • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 459–477. Modern Polish and 19th-century Karaimo-Qipchak translations: ‘Opis podróży do Ziemi Świętej’. Trans. Ananiasz ZajΩczkowski. Mysl Kara- imska 2: 3–4 (1931): 26–42.

GEDALIAH OF SIEMIATYCZE. HY 2 • Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim [Remember Jerusalem]. Berlin: [n.p.], 1716 [Hebrew; Hungary; Poland; Germany; Palestine; 1700–06, travel of a group of Judah Hasid’s followers from Poland to Jerusalem] • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1946, pp. 323–367.

GERSHON BEN ELIEZER HALEVI OF PRAGUE. HY 3 • Galilot erets-Yisra’el [Regions of the land of Israel]. Lublin: [n.p.], 1634–35; also pub. Fürth: [n.p.], 1691; Amsterdam: [n.p.], 1705 [Hebrew; Ukraine/Southern Ukraine, Crimea; Armenia; Turkey/Is- tanbul; Israel; 1624–31] • Iggeret ha-qodesh: galilot erets-Yisra’el [A sacred epistle: regions of the land of Israel]. Grodno: [n.p.], 1796. 236 East European Travel Writing in Europe: A Bibliography

• Also in Otsar Masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers. Sel. and ed. J.D. Eisenstein. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1969, pp. 176–187.

HOROWITZ, HAYYIM BEN DOV BAER HALEVI. HY 4 • Hibat Tsiyyon [Love of Zion]. Jerusalem: [n.p.], 1844; Königsberg: [n.p.], 1858; Vilnius: [n.p.], 1875. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Kremenets; Moldova; Turkey/Istanbul; Palestine; travelled 1817]

LUCKI (pron. ‘Łutski’), JOSEPH SOLOMON (1770?–1844; Polish-born Karaite Jew from Łuck). HY 5 • Iggeret teshu’at Yisra’el [Epistle of Israel’s deliverance]. Gezleve/Eu- patoria: [n.p.], [1840s]. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Crimea/Eupatoria, Simfer- opol, Perekop; Ukraine/Kherson, Odessa, Kharkiv, Poltava, Zhitomir; Russia/St Petersburg (Hermitage, Kunstkammer, visit to Tsar Nicho- las I), Novgorod, Moscow, Kursk, Orel; incl. Crimean Tatar trans. in Hebrew characters; travels of Crimean Karaites to St Petersburg in 1827 seeking exemption from military service for Karaite youth] English translation: Karaite separatism in nineteenth-century Russia: Jo- seph Solomon Lutski’s epistle of Israel’s deliverance. Trans. Philip Miller. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College, 1993, pp. 70–204. [incl. original]

MENAHEM MENDEL BEN AHARON OF KAMIENIEC. HY 6 • Qorot ha-ittim li-yishurun be-erets Yisra’el [History of the people of Israel in the Land of Israel]. Vilnius: [n.p.], 1840 [Hebrew; Ukraine/ Podolia, Odessa; Turkey/Istanbul; Palestine; travelled 1833–4] • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 532–544.

MOSES BEN ELIJAH HALEVI. HY 7 • ‘Masa’ot’ [Travels], in: Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg [Jewish documents from St Petersburg]. Vol. 1. Ed. Jonas Gurland. Lyck: Ru- dolph Siebert, 1865, pp. 31–43 [Hebrew; Ukraine/Crimea/Theodosia; Turkey/Istanbul; Israel/Jerusalem; Egypt/Cairo, Alexandria; Syria/Da- mascus; Crimean Karaite pilgrimage to Palestine, 1654–55] • ‘Masa’ot ha-qara’im le-erets Yisra’el: Mosheh Yerushalmi ben Eli- yahu Halevi’ [Travels of the Karaites to the land of Israel: Moses ben Elijah Halevi, pilgrim to Jerusalem], in Otsar Masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers. Sel. and ed. J.D. Eisenstein. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1969, pp. 206–211. • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1946, pp. 305–322.

MOSES BEN ISRAEL NAFTALI HIRSCH PORGES [Poerges/Präger/Moshe Foriat] of Prague (c. 1610–?). HY 8 • Darkhei Tzion [The roads of Zion]. Amsterdam: [n.p.], 1650. [Yid- dish; Hungary/Budapest; Turkey/Istanbul; Ukraine/Kamieniec Podol- ski; Israel/Jerusalem] German translation/adaptation in: Wege nach Zion. Reiseberichte und Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 237

Briefe aus Erez Jissrael in drei Jahrhunderten. Trans. Kurt Wilhelm. Berlin: Schocken Verlag, 1935. Hebrew translation in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 267–304 Hungarian translation in: Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a mag- yarországi zsidóság történetéhez a kezdetektõl 1686-ig (Hungaria Judaica 135). Ed. Shlomo J. Spitzer and Géza Komoróczy. Budapest: MTA Judaisztikai Kutatócsoport, 2003, pp. 579–584 [incl. excerpts from original]

NAHMAN OF BRATSLAV (1772–1810; Jewish Hasidic leader). HY 9 • Nesi’ot ha-yam [Travels by the sea]. Warsaw: [n.p.], 1846, 1850, 1879. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Nikolaev, Odessa; Turkey/Istanbul; Croatia/ Dubrovnik; Greece/Rhodes; Rumania/Iaşi; travelled 1798–99] • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 478–499; and in some other collections of writings of Rabbi Nahman.

SAMUEL BEN DAVID. HY 10 • ‘Masa’ot” [Travels], in: Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg [Jewish documents from St Petersburg]. Vol. 1. Ed. Jonas Gurland. Lyck: Ru- dolph Siebert, 1865, pp. 1–30 [Hebrew; Ukraine/Crimea/Eupatoria; Turkey/Istanbul, İzmir; Israel/Jerusalem; Egypt/Cairo; Syria/Aleppo, Damascus; group of Crimean and Polish Karaite pilgrims’ travel diary to Palestine, 1641–2] • ‘Masa’ot ha-qara’im le-erets Yisra’el: Shemu’el ben David’ [Trav- els of the Karaites to the land of Israel: Samuel ben David], in Otsar Masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers. Sel. and ed. J. D. Eisenstein. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1969, pp. 188–205. • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 221–266. English translation: ‘Jemsel the Karaite’. In: Jewish travellers in the Mid- dle Ages: 19 ﬁ rsthand accounts. New York: Dover, 1987, pp. 329–244. Latin translation: by G. Peringer in Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea.

SIMCHA BEN JOSHUA OF ZALOZHCY/ZAŁOŻCE (Eastern Galicia). HY 11 • Doresh Tsiyon [Lover of Zion]. Ed. H.E. Hausdorff. Jerusalem: [n.p.], 1887 [Hebrew; Ukraine/Brody, Sniatyn; Poland/Gda≈sk; Greece/Rhodes; Turkey/Istanbul, Hasköy; Italy/Livorno; Israel/Jerusa- lem; travel diary by group of Hasidic Jews from Poland and Lithuania to Palestine, 1764–65] • ‘Ahavat Tsiyon’ [Love of Zion]. Grodno: [n.p.], 1790. • Also in: Otsar Masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers. Sel. and ed. J.D. Eisenstein. Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1969, pp. 237–251. • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 382–423. 238 East European Travel Writing in Europe: A Bibliography

SIMCHA BEN PESAKH OF BRZEŚĆ/BREST. HY 12 • Sibuv qivrei ha-tsaddiqim [A tour round the graves of the righteous], Amsterdam: [n.p.], n.d. [Yiddish; Israel; 17th century]

SOFER, JOSEPH. HY 13 • Edut be-Yosef [Testimony of Joseph]. Frankfurt/Oder: [n.p.], 1765. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Brody; Israel/Safed; travel diary from Brody to Pal- estine, 1758] Yiddish version: Iggeret Yosef [An epistle of Joseph]. Frankfurt/Oder: [n.p.], 1767.

1850–1918

ASHER BEN JOSHUA GINZBURG [‘Ahad ha-Am’] (1856–1927; man of letters, public ﬁ gure). HY 14 • ‘Emet me-erets Yisra’el’ [Truth from the land of Israel]. In: Ha- Melits 31:125–134. St Petersburg: [n.p.], 1891 [Hebrew; Israel; travel memoir written on boat from Jaffa to Odessa, 1891] • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.], 1946, pp. 708–732.

BACHRACH, JACOB BEN MOSES (1824–96). HY 15 • Sefer ha-masa‘ la-arets ha-qedoshah [A travel to the Holy Land]. War- saw: [n.p.], 1883; 2nd ed., Kiev: [n.p.], 1884 [Hebrew; Palestine; noted apologist of rabbinical Judaism]

BERMAN, SIMON (1818–?; Jewish author and traveller from Kraków). HY 16 • Masa’ot Shimon [Travels of Simon]. Kraków: Fischer und Wein- dling, 1879. [Judeo-German; Poland/Galicia; Palestine; travelled 1870–1] Abridged Hebrew translation in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 593–610.

CHERNYI, JOSEPH JUDAH (1835–1880; Russian Jewish traveller, ethnographer). HY 17 • Sefer ha-masa‘ot ba-arets Kavkaz [Book of travels to the Caucasus]. Ed. A. Harkavy. St Petersburg: ha-Hevrah Li-tarbut Haskhalah ’etsel Yehudei Rusia, 1884. [Hebrew; Caucasus; Central Asia; Forschun- gsreise to Jewish communities there]

COHEN, MORDECAI BEN HILLEL (b.Mohilev, 1856–d.Jerusalem, 1936). HY 18 • Al adamat Yisra’el [About the land of Israel]. St Petersburg: W. Et- tinger, 1890. • Also in: Masa’ot Erets Yisrael. Ed. Abraham Ya’ari Tel Aviv: [n.p.]. 1946, pp. 651–707 [Hebrew; Ukraine/Odessa; Turkey/Istanbul; Egypt/Port Said; Israel; travelled 1889]

DEINARD, EPHRAIM [‘Adir’] (1846–1930; traveller, man of letters, collector of Hebrew MSS and rare prints). Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 239

HY 19 • Masa Qerim [Description of the Crimea]. Warsaw: I. Goldmann, 1878. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Crimea/Simferopol, Bakhchisaray, Chufut- Kale, Sevastopol, Bilohirsk; historical treatise in form of travel account late 1860s–early 1870s] HY 20 • Masa ba-hatsi ha-i Qerim [Travel to the Crimean peninsula]. 2 vols. Warsaw: Alexander Gins, 1879. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Southern Ukraine; Ukraine/Crimea/incl. Perekop, Armiansk, Eupatoria, Alushta, Simfer- opol, Bakhchisaray, Sevastopol, Bilohirsk; caves towns: Chufut-Kale, Mangup, Tepe-Kermen, Eski-Kermen; caves in vicinity of Chatyr- Dag] HY 21 • Masa be-erets ha-qedem [Travel to the East]. Pressburg [Bratislava]: Löwy and Alkalay, 1883. [Hebrew; Russia/St Petersburg; Ukraine/ Crimea/Kerch, Theodosia, Sevastopol; Turkey/Istanbul, İzmir; Greece/Crete, Rhodes; Egypt/Alexandria, Cairo; Israel/Jerusalem; Syria] HY 22 • Masa be-Eiropa [Travel to Europe]. Pressburg [Bratislava]: Löwy and Alkalay, 1885. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Southern Ukraine, Podolia, Galicia; Poland/Łódź; Russia/St Petersburg; Lithuania/Vilnius; Esto- nia; Finland; Germany; France; United Kingdom; Austria; Hungary; Romania; Turkey; travelled 1880]

FAHN, REUVEN (1878–d.a. 1939; Zionist, historian, ethnographer, man of letters from Galicia). HY 23 • Me-Hayye ha-Qera’im [From the life of the Karaites]. Halicz- Drohobycz: A.H. Zupnik, 1908. Berlin: B.Harz, c.1912. [Hebrew; Ukraine/Galicia, Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk; life of local Jewish communities] Abridged German translation: ‘Aus dem Leben der Karaiten’, Ost und West 1 (1912): 66–70; Ost und West 2 (1912): 135–144. HY 24 • ‘Me-Hayye ha-Qera’im’ [From the life of the Karaites]. Kitve Ruben Fahn. Part.1. Sefer ha-Qera'im. Part 2: Me-Hayye ha-Qera’im. Biłgoraj: [n.p.], 1929, 145–240. [Hebrew; considerably enlarged/revised vari- ant of above; repub. a few times in Israel after 1945]

FIRKOVICH, ABRAHAM BEN SAMUEL (1787–1874; collector of Hebrew MSS, traveller). [see also LIC 1945–2000] HY 25 • Avnei Zikkaron [Memorial Stones]. 2 parts. Vilnius: S. Finn and A. Rosenkranz, 1872. [Ukraine/Crimea/Chufut-Kale, Bilohirsk, Theo- dosia, Bakhchisaray; Lithuania/Vilnius, Trakai; Caucasus/Derbent, Madjeliss; Turkey/Istanbul, Israel; Syria; Iraq; Egypt]

GOTTLOBER, ABRAHAM BAER (see 1945–2000).

MANDELSTAMM, BENJAMIN (end c18–1886; Russian Hebraist and author). HY 26 • Hazon la-mo’ed [A prophecy]. Vienna: [n.p.], 1877. [Hebrew; Lithu- ania/Žagarė; Russia/Moscow; Ukraine/Crimea; description of Crimea and position of Russian Jews, travelled 1835] 240 East European Travel Writing in Europe: A Bibliography

SLOUSCHZ, NAHUM (1872–1966; Russian Hebrew litterateur from Odessa). HY 27 • Masa‘ be-Mitsrayim [A travel to Egypt]. Kraków: Tushiyah, 1907. [Hebrew; Egypt]

STERN, GERSHON. HY 28 • Masaey bney Yisroel / Masaei benei Yisrael [Travels of the sons of Israel]. Paks: Rosenbaum, 1910. [Judeo-German/Yiddish; Hungary/ Budapest; Israel; trip made by Orthodox community from Budapest to Palestine, by participant] Hebrew translation: In Sinai, 30. Trans. Naftali Ben-Menahem. [contains three other parts: Tﬁ le le-oyley Tsiyon; Gebete; Di konigskrone. 8°, pp. 24 (the four parts together p. 64)].

1918–1945

ASCH, SHOLEM (1880–1957). HY 29 • Mayn rayze iber Shpanyen [My journey to Spain]. Warsaw: Kultur- lige, 1926. [Yiddish; Spain]

BUBLICK, GEDALIAH (1875–1948). HY 30 • Mayn rayze in Erets Yisroel [My travel to the land of Israel]. New York: Tageblat, 1921. [Yiddish; Israel]

HOFFMAN, BENZION (1874–1954). HY 31 • Mayn rayze in Erets Yisroel [My travel to the land of Israel]. Warsaw: Di Velt, 1923. [Yiddish; Israel]

KAZAKEVICH, EMMANUIL (1913–1962). HY 32 • Der veg keyn Birobidzshan: rayze-bilder [The road to Birobidzhan: travel impressions]. Moscow: Emes, 1940. [Yiddish; USSR/Russia/ incl. Siberia/Birobidzhan]

KHASHCHEVATSKII, MOISEI (1897–1944). HY 33 • A rayze keyn Birebidzshan: fun mayn togbukh [A journey to Birobid- zhan: from my diary]. Kiev: Melukhe-farlag far di natsionale minder- haytn in USSR, 1937. [Yiddish; USSR/Russia/incl. Siberia/Birobid- zhan]

MEKLER, D. L. (b.1891). HY 34 • Mentsh un mashin in Sovyetn-land: faktn, bilder, eyndrukn fun a rayze iber Sovyet-Rusland [A man and machine in the Soviet Union: facts, sketches, impressions from a travel to Soviet Russia]. Warsaw: Y. Ziman, 1936. [Yiddish; USSR/Russia]

PERELMAN, OSHER (b. 1895). HY 35 • Biro Bidzshan: shilderungen fun a rayze in Yuli-Oygust 1934 [Yid- dish; Birobidzhan: notes on a journey in July–August 1934]. Warsaw: Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing 241

Groshn-bibliotek, 1934; Buenos Aires: Farlag Folks-bibliotek, 1934. [USSR/Russia/incl. Siberia/Birobidzhan]

WARSZAWSKI, YAKIR (1885–1943). HY 36 • Min ha-moledet: rishmei masa be-Erets Yisra’el veha-aratsot ha-semuk- hot [From the homeland: travel to the land of Israel and adjacent countries]. Warsaw: Levin-Epshtayn, 1921. [Hebrew]

1945–2000

BILECKI, ISRAEL (b.1914). HY 37 • Akhzar mi-kol ha-mifgash (masa le-Polin, 1983) [A harsh encounter: travel to Poland, 1983]. Tel Aviv: Hotsaat Gazit, 1983. [Hebrew; Po- land; journey to Poland by Holocaust survivor, 1983]

CASPI (Srebrenik), MENACHEM (b.1920). HY 38 • Ke-‘aleh nidaf ba-ruah: masa‘ le-tokh Varshah ha-Yehudit she-haye- tah ve-enenah ‘od [As a leaf in the wind: a journey to Jewish Warsaw which was and is no more]. Tel Aviv: Yaron Golan, 1995. [Hebrew; Poland/Warsaw; travel memoir by Holocaust survivor, pupil at Jewish yeshivah in Warsaw before the war]

GORDON, SHMUEL (b.1909). HY 39 • Birebidzshaner toyshvim: rayze-bilder [Inhabitants of Birobidzhan: travel sketches]. Moscow: Emes, 1947. [Yiddish; USSR/Russia/incl. Siberia/Birobidzhan] HY 40 • Bene ha-‘ayarah mesaprim: sipurim historiyim mi-Milhemet ha-‘olam ha-sheniyah [Inhabitants of a small town recount: historical tales from the Second World War]. Bene-Berak: Yots’e Horodlah be-Erets Yisra’el, 2000. [Hebrew; Poland/Horodła, Lublin; travels of Holo- caust survivor in Poland during Second World War]

GOTTLOBER, ABRAHAM BAER (1810–99; Jewish enlightener-maskil, man of letters). HY 41 • Zikhronot u-masa’ot [Memoirs and travels]. Sel. and ed. with intr. and notes by Reuven Goldberg. 2 vols. Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1976. [Russia/St. Petersburg, Moscow; Ukraine/Kamieniets Podolski, Kiev, Kharkiv, Zhytomir, Lviv; Belarus/Minsk, Hrodno; Poland/War- saw, Kraków, Białystok; Lithuania/Vilnius, Kaunas; Romania; travelled 1820s–70s]

MELZER, JACOB. HY 42 • Masa‘ shel Yanko [Yanko’s travel]. Konstanz: Hartung-Gorre, 2001. [Ukraine/Chernivtsi; Moldova; Israel; travels 1941–56]